


No Amends

by 5ColorsInMyLife



Series: Supernatural One Shots [1]
Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24488971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ColorsInMyLife/pseuds/5ColorsInMyLife
Series: Supernatural One Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769011
Kudos: 1





	No Amends

He watches his eldest son who is lying in the hospital bed.  
Tired, injured, but _alive_.  
  
Words he had never thought to say out loud have made it past his lips at last;  
  
 _I'm so proud of you._

 _I'm so, s o sorry._  
  
But they could not begin to convey the depth of his remorse.They could not undo what twenty years of a cold and strict upbringing had caused. All this, because he had made the mistake of thinking that his grief had always been his, and only his to bear. It had taken him too long to look not at what he had lost, but what he still had. And now, only now when his son’s life is on the line does he realise what he should have done from the start.  
  
He fights the urge to look back over his shoulder, at Dean. His son is no fool; if John looks again, Dean will know. He is already suspicious, and scared.  
  
And he can’t let that happen.  
  
The gun is gone, and in a matter of minutes, so will he.  
The empty hospital room, his last respite.  
  
He would have wanted to hold onto to his sons’ hands, one last time, but he has no right. If their whole lives until now have always been tainted by his selfishness, at least, in death, he owes it to them to be selfless. But even that is wrong. Even that will not truly be the case. Because it shouldn’t be in death that he makes his final confession to his sons. It shouldn’t be in _d e a t h_ that they finally realise that they have always, invariably, come first. He should have made this clear in life; made them the direct reason for his concerns. The one reason he’d have had to stay and watch them grow. Instead, somewhere along the line, he had made them and his insatiable need for revenge his one reason to stay a w a y–  
  
 _It's time._  
  
He feels it, in his bones. A shiver, his only warning, creeping up his spine. And then he sees them, from the corner of his eyes, ready to take his last breath in exchange for his son’s. It was the right thing to do, but it also really wasn’t. He knows what Dean will think, if he figures it out. And he will. One day, sooner or later, he will.  
  
He won’t look at them, but that won’t keep them away. If anything, their suffocating presence is so heavy that it petrifies him, although he would never run. He does not look, but he can feel a hand, its foreboding heaviness, move closer to his head.

It is really over, but still there is no solace. It won’t come to him. Because there are too many things that he should have done, too many things that he should have been. And should have said.

The touch is sudden, cold and unforgiving. He gasps for breath, or maybe for one last word, one last attempt to speak, to say–  
  
but they are quicker, and he falters; he falls. His body doesn’t listen to him, and it never will again. He collapses, his head hitting the tiled floor, eyes staring up at the ceiling.  
  
And still no words. No chances to tell them, ever again.

  
Because he had chosen this deafening silence in life,  
And it _w i l l_ be forced upon him in death.


End file.
